Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 42.djvu/221

Rh for human flesh, had been fully acquired, after which it would continue its hold upon them, even if the need of it was slight.

The Indians of the Northwest have been known to eat their enemies slain in battle, yet the practice never extended to the consumption of the entire body, down to the particular habit of cracking the bones to get the marrow.



HE year 1891 was certainly one of those in which new industrial applications of paper were most numerous. The idea of using paper in place of stone in the construction of houses is already old; but paper to take the place of glass in windows, of clay in flower-pots, of iron in railway rails, wagon-wheels, and horseshoes, of porcelain in laboratory ware, of wood in barrels, it having already taken the place of that material in small boats, paper in pulleys, are applications as novel as bold. The manufacture of window-panes of paper was first tried in the United States. The panes have the appearance of milky glass, and the property of intercepting the light-rays while letting the heat-rays through, which makes them suitable for greenhouses. It is estimated that a paper window-pane ninety-four by sixty-three centimetres in dimensions in a wooden sash with iron appliances, will cost about eighty-five cents, and last on the average four years.

One of the most ingenious of the new applications of paper is in pulleys. These pulleys, the invention of M. Burot, have a center of cast iron and spokes of iron, bearing a bracing on which the paper felloe rests. This bracing supports the felloe during its manufacture, and thus gives it more firmness. The paper, of a special quality, is glued, rolled, and compressed upon the bracing in a single operation. The crown should then be dried and dipped in a mixture of linseed oil and resin. These pulleys, much lighter than those of iron, are also appreciably cheaper. They are used for the transmission of forces of from a half horse power to four horse powers.

Paper flower-pots have the advantage over earthen pots of being unbreakable and much lighter. If their net cost were considerably less than that of the earthen pots, they might replace them in the immense use made of them by gardeners and forest cultivators. They are imputrescible, impermeable, and shed the water. Like similar articles in terra cotta, they are adapted to ornamentation. Covered with a coat of enamel, or painted, they have the advantage over ornamental earthen pots of lending